The narrative of the Prokomos story of the war against Gothos in Italy contains many cases of Gothos, Italians and Eastern Roma who change paradoxes during the long conflict. A systematic examination of the issue shows that Prokopios was generally confronted with consensual deserters, reflecting the broader Mediterranean perceptions of the 6th century. What can be learned from the examples of ‘progressive’ attitudes about dissent in the Iustinian era? Similar and other acts of disagreement by soldiers suggest that units of the Iustinian army — at least during the Western war — had a certain level of freedom of speech and action, which sometimes allowed them to dictate conditions either to their commander or to the central government in Istanbul. In the same way, the gethical resistance in Italy can be interpreted as an act of non-compliance with the policy that treated them as heavy, without a legitimate claim for Italy.